At dusk, with night just beginning to press down, Lena Sanders sauntered toward the inn building with Harris Ma and Jack Golden following at her heels.
Fried Rice Alley lay not far from the inn. Past the north lane mouth stood the Wazi-kou prison. Naturally there were no lanterns nor festive crowds at a prison gate; under the bright lights on either side, this stretch looked unusually dark.
Lena paused. Harris and Jack snapped to attention. Lena's slender sword slipped out; she stepped into the shadow.
Harris and Jack followed, stepping into the gloom with her.
Lena halted, then suddenly leapt up. Her slender blade flashed—an assassin toppled from the old tree above them.
Harris swung his steel blade at the falling attacker; Jack fell into position back to back with Lena, watching the lane ahead.
Figures swayed in the dark, blades glinting.
Without waiting for Jack to steady himself, Lena charged the shifting silhouettes. The crossbow's trigger clicked softly, the slender sword sliced through the air. At the sound of the trigger Jack thrust his blade upward while Harris met another attacker.
Lena spun with lightning speed. Before the man whose throat had been slashed could fall, she had lunged at the assailant Harris faced; her slender sword stabbed from behind, then twisted and drew across the throat.
Jack wrenched his blade free from a corpse and pressed his back against Lena's; Harris steadied his defense as well.
Lena withdrew her slender sword and exhaled. "Done. All of them."
"Good heavens!" Harris breathed, wiping sweat from his brow. "Four this time?"
"Aye—four. How much silver do you reckon that's worth this round? Must be a heap." Jack's face shone with cold sweat as well.
"Search them—carefully." Lena ordered, crouching by one of the bodies and feeling through the hair.
Harris and Jack hurried over and began a thorough search.
Lena's hands moved deftly. In moments she had rifled two bodies and plucked a talisman from one collar. The other man bore nothing.
"Boss, look at this." Jack produced two thumb-sized round tea cakes and handed them to Lena.
She sniffed one and passed it to Harris.
"The blood stinks too much," Harris said, turning the cake to scent the untainted half.
"What spices are in it? Something cooling." Lena peered at him.
Harris sniffed again. "Not a single scent—an incense blend. There's definitely borneol. The blood's soaked through; everything's damp."
"Wrap them up and keep them." Lena gave the blood-darkened tea cakes to Jack.
Aside from blades, clothing, and the death-writ talismans, the four attackers carried only these small trinkets—oddly professional.
"Let's move." Lena stepped forward a few paces, then asked, "You two can still go eat?"
"Depends how filthy we are." Harris darted into a pool of light, holding his arms up to inspect the blood splatter on his garments.
"Turn the coat inside out—so long as your face's clean." Jack stepped close and motioned Harris to look at his own face.
"Then let's find somewhere to wash our hands first, then eat."
Lena shrugged off her outer long coat, putting it on inside out as she walked. "Looks like whoever wants me dead is in a hurry. We'll eat slowly, stroll back slowly, and see if there's a second wave tonight. If there is, we'll borrow lodgings at Prince Rui's mansion for a few days; if not, we'll return to Fried Rice Alley."
"Damn—how many killers are there in Castleton?" Harris spat.
"Those we faced earlier were skilled. I think tonight's lot were better than the previous two rounds." Jack had finished changing and fell into step beside Lena.
Lena hummed noncommittally. These waves of assailants were likely the métier's lower ranks—why they'd been so easily turned at the hands of her and hers. If she had once been an assassin herself, then among the trade there must have been others of her caliber, or far more expert. She needed to find who wanted her dead before killers of her level—or superior—arrived.
The three washed their faces and hands, reversed their outer garments, and entered the inn.
From the doormen to the tea-master, no one at the inn so much as glanced twice at the three men who had flipped their garments inside out; they ran a tavern, not a guesthouse—no duty to question a customer's dress. Whatever a patron wished to wear was none of their concern.
Lena ate while turning the talisman and the tea cakes over in her mind. The talisman was a peachwood plaque, somewhat aged and thumb-sized. A continuous swastika-like pattern rimmed its edge. One face bore the character ping (peace), the other an (safety). A perfectly ordinary charm—sold everywhere. To glean anything meaningful from such a trinket would be near impossible.
The tea cakes, however, were saturated with blood and wrapped in mulberry bark paper stamped with a fu character—no different from the common wrappers used for compressed tea.
Lena sat in silence, thinking. Harris and Jack ate in sullen quiet.
Half sated, they drank two cups of tea, left the inn, and did not retrace their steps. Instead they strolled down West Main Street toward Jinliang Bridge, threading through bustling thoroughfares and a few pitch-dark alleys. They kept on until after the third watch, and, thankfully, returned to Fried Rice Alley unharmed.
Once inside the second gate Lena exhaled a long breath.
First: the killers sent to fetch her life were likely mercenaries hired by a bounty—free agents—not household retainers. Hiring killers from public listings and using one's own retained assassins are two entirely different orders of magnitude.
Second: this guild of killers either kept hours like other trades—closed at night—or a given contract's success or failure would only be known after many hours. That suited her; it bought her breathing room.
She had time now—to move, to watch, and to find the hand that had put a price on her head—before more dangerous killers came.